The BBC has developed a really neat piece of software for its news site (how often do I find myself saying that?), which is probably of slightly more interest to other web editors than to users. It is a live statistics box that shows users what is the most-read and most-watched content on the BBC's site at any given moment.

Most of us can trace on a minute-by-minute basis what is happening on our sites through the use of live stats, but outside the BBC, the reflection of this on websites is fairly rudimentary and lists the most-read content or most-watched video. And it is this part of the BBC news site that I find most fascinating.

When the stats counter was launched on the site, the first day's "most popular video" was a very fuzzy clip of a man making a cola bottle erupt with the use of some over-the-counter medicines. It had been a short item on the Today programme, envisaged as a kind of popular science strand. The video itself was played not from a page on the BBC site but from the YouTube site, where people upload their own videos or copy clips from recorded television programmes.

It is instructive that, on the whole of the BBC news site, where footage of most major news events is readily available, something so off-beat should be so popular. I checked the site again last week to discover that the most popular video news item was on the Wags (wives and girlfriends) of the England squad.

One of the many things we look to the BBC for leadership on is just how text-based websites should deal with audiovisual material. At the Guardian, we have a productive documentary unit in Guardian Films, but we are also examining the best ways to put video on to the website. The Times site has launched its own Times TV service - which is, essentially, what we call a media player (a sort of onscreen TV) with a feed of Reuters clips.

Deciding how far websites should pursue the hugely expensive business of turning themselves into text-and-broadcast hybrids is a great challenge for newspapers, which have plenty of text but very few moving pictures. On the New York Times, which is currently experimenting with its journalism in terms of adding video to the mix, there is a team of 11 staff who handle video content. There is a reason why TV companies tend to have more employees than newspapers, and it is precisely because of the labour-intensive nature of production and editing.

But is it really what users of newspaper websites want? My own feeling is that since the advent of broadband, which now probably accounts for over 60% of homes hooked up to the internet (and 30% of all homes) in the UK and is growing incredibly quickly, the idea that you can run a website in the long term without adding features such as video and audio is unsustainable.

The BBC also released figures last week saying it had received 1.7m requests for its live streamed football matches from the World Cup since the start of the tournament. On a per-match basis, this is not a huge number, but it is clear that people will increasingly want to see moving images on whatever screen is closest to them - and not just on a television set.

What is certain, however, about moving images on the web, is that we have not yet seen the best applications for them. It is a medium that can distribute television footage or even full-length feature films, but the demand for shorter clips scattered among other content, perhaps packaged with words, sounds and still pictures, will be the way forward.

Newspapers will have to get into this game, just as broadcasters have to get into text - if they have not already done so. The trick, of course, will be to replicate the viewing experience without adding the incremental televisual costs.